Uwamie Tomiyasu v. Richard Golden

Appellants challenge the validity, under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, of a foreclosure sale under a deed of trust, and of the trustee’s deed issued to the purchasers at the sale, appellees herein. Specifically, appellants contend the sale and trustee’s deed issued pursuant to it deprived them of property without due process of law because they were not given notice of default under the deed of trust or of the foreclosure proceedings and sale. Jurisdiction of the district court was based on diversity of citizenship, 28 U.S.C. § 1332 , and on the federal question noted above, 28 U.S.C. § 1331 .

The property involved in this case is an eighty acre tract of land in Clark County, Nevada, which at the time of the foreclosure sale in 1962 was owned in undivided thirds by appellants and their father as tenants in common. The land was encumbered by a first deed of trust in the amount of approximately $39,000. In 1959 a second deed of trust encumbering the land was executed by appellants’ father to secure an additional indebtedness of approximately $18,000. This second deed of trust was executed on behalf of appellants by the father…